MoMA's new naked-art exhibit

Maria Stamenkovic and Matthew Rogers perform naked in the Museum of Modern Art’s eyebrow-raising new exhibit, Marina Abramovic’s “The Artist is Present.”

Tamara Beckwith

The exhibit features 38 performers in rotating shifts of eight facing each other at a doorway or lying under a skeleton or posing in other pieces, mostly in the nude.

Tamara Beckwith

One performer, Amelia Uzategui Bonilla, told The Post last week, “We’re all prepared for discomfort. You just have to suck it up!”

Tamara Beckwith

Matthew Rogers (pictured), 31, who teaches Pilates when he’s not on display, says, “It can be a little sketchy. Sometimes, there’s that feeling like, ‘Oh, this is a little gross,’ and then it’s gone.”

Tamara Beckwith

All the “The Artist is Present” performers went through a mini-boot camp to prepare for the exhibit. For five days, they led a monk-like existence — fasting, not speaking and not reading — while doing exercises designed to help them develop self-control, including bathing in an icy pond, walking in slow motion and counting grains of rice.
READ MORE: NAKED-ART EXHIBIT DRAWS ‘TOUCHY’ CROWD